Posts Tagged ‘budget’
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Ford’s bungling of Ontario’s nursing shortage is aimed at undermining public health care
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
… staff shortages and long wait-lists in Ontario are problems that were greatly exacerbated by Ford’s mishandling of the nursing crisis. Could it be that the dissatisfaction with our health-care system may be best solved — not by introducing a lot of private, profit-making clinics — but simply by paying nurses good wages within the public system?
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Senate holding up Pharmacare Act
Monday, September 16th, 2024
… the Health Minister’s and the House Leader’s offices told Canadian Health Coalition representatives they expected the Senate to pass the Pharmacare Act before the summer. The Minister said he had several provinces ready to enter into agreements soon thereafter… But the Senate had different ideas… Now there are indications the Senate SOCI committee is entertaining amendments to Bill C-64… pharmaceutical and insurance corporations have lobbied furiously to derail Bill C-64, or delay it as long as possible.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, participation, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Six key takeaways from Welfare in Canada, 2023
Monday, September 16th, 2024
Total welfare incomes were deeply inadequate across Canada in 2023. Increases to social assistance benefits between 2018 and 2023 were uneven across jurisdictions. Very few jurisdictions have indexed benefits and tax credits to inflation as of 2023… Provinces and territories should invest in higher social assistance benefits and tax-delivered income supports. Governments at all levels should index all social assistance benefits and tax-delivered benefits or credits to inflation where they don’t already do so.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Why teachers like me are dreading the return to school
Wednesday, September 4th, 2024
… 30 per cent of Ontario teachers leave the vocation in the first five years as educators. Ontario educators are leaving teaching behind as severe provincial spending cuts, the strain of COVID and a drastic rise in student violence have created an education crisis in Ontario… The provincial government began slashing funding to education in 2019. This resulted in multibillion dollar budget shortfalls for Ontario boards… A 2023-2024 survey reported a 24 per cent shortage of teaching staff in elementary schools, and a 35 per cent teaching shortage in secondary schools.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario reduces child-care fees, introduces new operator funding formula
Sunday, August 18th, 2024
The new funding structure, which will come into effect January 1, also comes with an announcement that as of the same day the fees parents pay will be further reduced. They have already come down about 50 per cent to an average of $23 a day and next year will fall to an average of $19, and capped at $22. Those will be cut further to an average of $10 a day by March 2026, a date pushed back from an earlier pledge of September 2025.
Tags: budget, child care, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Canada has a hospital wait-time crisis. Other countries with universal health-care don’t. We should follow their lead
Tuesday, August 6th, 2024
In Canada, hospitals are primarily funded through what is called block funding… Under this system, any patient coming in is a cost to the hospital, which is then incentivized to ration care through long wait times… In European health-care systems, hospitals are primarily funded through an activity-based funding model… As every act of care is tied to a direct source of revenue, hospitals are encouraged to see and treat more patients
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Crown must settle with First Nations for breaching Robinson treaties: Supreme Court
Thursday, August 1st, 2024
The Crown made a mockery of its treaty promise to the Anishinaabe in Ontario by freezing annual payments to First Nations for 150 years, and it now must make things right, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled… The decision noted that the Crown has derived “enormous economic benefit” from the land through mining and other activities over the years, while First Nations communities have suffered with inadequate housing and boil-water advisories. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said people have been living in abject poverty.
Tags: budget, featured, Indigenous, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | No Comments »
Ford’s zealous desire to privatize alcohol sales will be costly for Ontario taxpayers
Friday, July 12th, 2024
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)… annual profit — $2.5 billion in 2023 — goes into the public treasury, where it pays for things like health care and education… it’s doubtful that Ontarians would want to pay higher taxes so that more profits from alcohol sales could go to highly-profitable grocery store chains… Once all the LCBO’s lost revenue is factored in, the full cost to the public treasury of this privatization will likely be… close to a billion dollars.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, privatization, tax
Posted in Delivery System | No Comments »
Is the cap on for-profit centres hampering growth of $10-a-day child care in Ontario?
Wednesday, July 10th, 2024
In the deal with the federal government, Ontario committed… to maintaining a ratio in the $10-a-day system of 70 per cent non-profit spaces and 30 per cent for-profit spaces… while there have been about 51,000 new spaces since 2019 for the kids five and under… only 25,500 of those are within the $10-a-day system… Ontario needs to address its own funding formula and workforce issues before seeking to expand for-profit daycares.
Tags: budget, child care, featured, ideology, participation
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Four decades of tax cuts, deregulation and privatization equals a serious distribution of wealth problem
Saturday, July 6th, 2024
After slashing government funding to public services starving them into crisis just to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy and their corporations, they then present privatization as the solution to a problem they created. The only thing deregulation and privatization does is create more profit-making opportunities…
Small tax cuts to the general population have been used as a cover for massive tax cuts to the wealthy and their corporations. Reversing tax cuts is not raising taxes, it is restoring revenue to rebuild our once civil society.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization, standard of living, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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